Surveillance footage shows NBC helicopter's final seconds as drug-driver faces murder charges over chain of five deaths
From the Newshound archive · first published 19 September 2026.
Eliana Moreno, whose final words aboard NBC4's NewsChopper4 were "You can't pull up?", as federal investigators say the live broadcast recording is their most important evidence into the fatal Chatsworth crash.The wreckage of NBC4's NewsChopper4, which came down over Chatsworth on Tuesday, killing three people including a Guatemalan national who had been in Los Angeles for just two days.An aerial night view of rooftops captured by NBC4's NewsChopper 4 moments before it crashed, as Bailee Lynn Rios, the SUV driver whose alleged speeding triggered the chain of events, faces murder charges.NBC4's NewsChopper 4 over downtown Los Angeles. Investigators probing the fatal Chatsworth crash have reportedly found drugs in an SUV near the scene and are examining a "dead man's curve" flight theory.
Disturbing surveillance footage has captured NBC NewsChopper4 plunging from the sky in its final moments before it struck a Los Angeles parking lot on Tuesday, claiming the lives of reporter Eliana Moreno, 38, pilot George Marciniw, 70, and bystander Edy Gutierrez Mejia, 29. NTSB investigators say the footage is now central to their inquiry into whether engine failure brought down the Eurocopter from low altitude. The aircraft had been on scene for a bus crash triggered by Bailee Lynn Rios, 36, who drove her Ford Expedition the wrong way through a red light while allegedly impaired by drugs; she now faces second-degree murder charges and a potential life sentence for the deaths of bus passengers Daniel Castillo, 46, and Gage Weida, 31.
Aviation experts warn the helicopter was likely caught in a 'dead man's curve' — too low and too slow to execute an emergency landing after apparent engine failure.
Methamphetamine and drug paraphernalia were found in Rios's vehicle; she missed her arraignment Thursday due to hospitalisation and is due in court Friday.
Moreno's family said she 'dreamed of becoming a news reporter since she was 11' and that she 'left this world doing the very thing she loved.'
